WHAT MAKES A GOOD LEADER?

     Finally got around to reading this past Sunday's NY Times business section, and, as usual, found the weekly interview with a business executive or  head of an organization both incisive and informative. One can learn from these articles, and, indeed, I incorporated some appropriate advice from these articles during my working years. I believed they helped.
     This week's article had the question, "What are some early lessons you learned as a manager?" She said that she learned that her personality had to be adapted to the work arena, not to be bossy or autocratic, to have a balance between a strong personality who could solve problems yet allow air for others to function. She said that it took time to learn. Amen to that!
     A further posed question concerned the evolution of a leadership style to which she replied that simply being a mother and learning that the world did not revolve around oneself helped greatly. It was not all about "me", not at home and not at the workplace. One has to nurture one's work companions and subordinates, to encourage them and set goals, achievable goals.
     Well, there ya' go. These qualities are missing in our esteemed (sic) leader of UCO. Having few deep relationships as far as anyone can tell, David Israel never had to learn that there were others that were important. The me, me, me toddler years never seemed to be outgrown and thus we now have a president of UCO who maintains that attitude. It is all about his desires, his projects, his dreams, his needs rather than those of the residents and the Village.
     And as far as character and temperament, well, just look at the situation. People are frightened by him, threatened and intimidated. What will he look for on the Internet about them - and he does tell people he can find out anything he wants. Now while that is quite an exaggeration, people are taken aback and back off. People are yelled at , called some nasty names - in public - lose their computers as they suddenly "shut down" and the workplace becomes a place of subordination rather than cooperation.
     I have maintained all along that even while allowing that perhaps he had the best of intentions when he began his UCO career,  (see A Modern Fairy Tale) David Israel never had any management experience, never learned about budget and priorities, about future planning and never had a learning curve that succeeded here in UCO. Hence we have the poor working environment, the limited amount of people he can or will work with, and a very shaky financial foundation. If one listened to the Officer Committee meeting the other day, one could become quite confused. The numbers were unclear and uncertain. Even our Treasurer had no idea as to final numbers so how, tell me and tell all the others, can we possibly talk about increasing the UCO fees or "decreasing" them (now that is a wild one!) when we have three sets of numbers running around. The wise thing to do is hold off, avert disaster and prioritize. Keep what we must, cut where we can and make sure these cuts are humane and put huge new projects on hold till we clear up our issues now. Where is the money for redoing all the areas that are real crap on our streets and walkways? In fact, where are the finishing touches for ANY project that has been spoken about over the past four and a half years?
     Where is the fence or any finality about Southhampton?
     Where are the details about the new by laws that Gorodetzer seems to be writing all by herself - lovely thought, that!
     Where is the new attorney that David Israel agreed so long ago that we needed to replace?
     Where are the concrete plans and proposals, the working committee composed of ALL segments of the Village population that will deal with life after the Millennium Agreement is over?
     Where is the entry system - oh, right, the bar codes are working yet Bob Marshall is still talking about the lightning strike. And those cameras..... One out of so many - and more that can be mentioned.
     People, we need new leadership here in the Village. Look around and find good people, urge them to commit and run for various offices. Volunteering is almost useless at  this point as you will be ignored, told there is no room - unless you are a DI groupie. So run for Executive Board. Run for VP. Run for Secretary. Run for President. Support those who want to see a positive change and a positive environment here in the Village. Speak up. Do something.
    People have told me that I am spitting into the wind, that the situation is useless and hopeless, that David Israel has a huge machine that will keep him in office till the day he dies. I cannot believe that. I wrote yesterday of the courage others have and the courage we need, the desire to right a wrong situation. Huge corrupt Tammany Hall political machines and politics worthy of Chicago politics have no place here in the Village. Think about it and act.